The Condor

CHAPTER XX. THE ROUT

SHERIFF BROCK’S sedan drew to a standstill. Its headlights shone upon the bars of the formidable gate that blocked the driveway to Mountview Lodge. The glare showed blackened streaks upon the ground beyond crisscrossed shadows of the gate’s strong bars.

From the darkness of the slope above were squared blocks of illumination. These were the window lights of Mountview Lodge. The evening was young; none of those within the lodge had retired at this early hour.

Brock spoke to his companions. When the sheriff alighted, Marquette and Lieth did the same. One to each side of the sedan, they joined trios of waiting men. Hank stepped up and entered the front seat.

The sheriff was unlocking the gate. The large key worked. Brock swung the gate open and came back to the sedan. He drove through and stopped some fifty. feet beyond.

“I’m stalling to give them time,” he whispered to Harry and Hank. “Sit tight until I come back.”

The sheriff returned to the gate. Through the open windows of the rear seat, Harry could hear the creep of advancing men. Lieth, he knew, was leading a band far out to the right. Marquette and his trio were skirting the left.

Creeping sounds faded. Still Harry listened. He had decided that The Shadow — informed of plans — would choose this opportunity also. He could picture his black-cloaked chief coming through the opened gate, hard on the heels of advancing squads.

Harry heard no sound. That, however, was not proof of The Shadow’s absence. Harry recalled numerous times when The Shadow had crept close by him without giving the slightest clue to his mysterious presence.

Hank was consulting a watch by the dashlight. Brock arrived, after considerable delay. Hank stated the time that the sheriff had taken to go back to the gate and fake the action of locking it.

“Three and a half minutes,” was his verdict. “They ought to be close to the house, sheriff.”

“We’ll give them half a minute more,” decided Brock, stalling the motor. “I’ll fool with the starter, like the engine had stopped by itself.”

The sheriff took a half minute to get started. By this time, the car’s delay had obviously attracted attention in the lodge. The front door had opened; a figure appeared and stepped out to the veranda. Two others joined the first.

“Good,” commented Brock. “They still think it’s Corey. Have your revolvers ready, both of you. Back me up when I get out and flash the search warrant. You won’t be having trouble, though, because those fellows will be covered from the flank. When Marquette and Lieth—”

The sheriff broke off suddenly as a revolver barked from one edge of the veranda. He jammed the brake as a bullet whistled by his rolling car. Another flash spat from the same side of the porch — the right — and at the same instant, a second slug drilled the hood, just in front of the windshield.

“Stop them!” came a man’s shout from the blackness of the porch. “Stop. them! They are enemies! Foes of The Condor!”

THE sedan was no more than a hundred feet from the lodge. Searchlights gleamed of a sudden — a battery of revealing glares, all along the front of the veranda. Someone had pressed the switch inside the lodge. The men at the door were yanking revolvers.

Brock spat an oath as he pointed to the porch. There, halfway in from the edge, was Carl Lieth. It was the new ally who had delivered those first shots. It was he who had cried out the alarm.

He was turning, pointing back where his trio of men should be. The glaring lights showed three deputies a full fifty yards from the porch. Lieth had told them to remain behind while he sneaked forward alone. The deputies had obeyed the new ally’s order.

The Condor’s henchmen saw Lieth point; then saw him swing and indicate the other end of the veranda.

There Marquette and his trio were rising in the light. The Condor’s crew swung to aim at these closer enemies, while Lieth, backing over to join the crew at the door, blazed shots against the trio that he had commanded.

Hank was firing wildly. Harry joined in. Marquette and his men dropped below their end of the porch; the deputies whom Lieth had betrayed went sprawling to the ground for shelter.

A harsh order came from within the front door. The Condor’s men — Lieth with them — went diving from view. The big door slammed behind them. Sheriff Brock fired useless shots against the barrier.

Brock had clambered from the car, Hank with him. Harry followed; they stood a dozen paces from the sedan, viewing the silent lodge. Upstairs lights blinked suddenly; the window frames blackened.

Only the glare of the searchlights remained. In it stood those three men from the car. Not one of them had sensed the meaning of the darkened windows; but there was a being present who knew the significance of what was about to come.

Rising over the top of the sheriff’s sedan came a looming, shaded figure. The Shadow had been further down the lawn; he had entered as Harry had hoped; but he had stayed back while the law attacked.

Lieth’s treachery had been unforeseen by The Shadow; for he had not learned of the man’s arrival in Paulington. During the brief exchange of shots about the veranda, The Shadow had swept forward from his distant post, obscured by Brock’s sedan. Mounted on the far side of the vehicle, head and shoulders barely discernible above the top, The Shadow took aim and fired.

The burst of his automatic was accompanied by a sharp ping high on the front of the lodge. One of the searchlights blackened. Its clattering glass dropped to the veranda. An instant later, The Shadow fired a second shot; another searchlight vanished.

Brock wheeled to look for the sharpshooter. He did not see The Shadow. Those two lights were the central ones of the row along the lodge; with their glares ended, the sedan was bathed in partial obscurity.

THEN came the answer which The Shadow had expected; it told why he had dealt his strokes against the lights. Flashes came from darkened windows along the second floor. The Condor’s henchmen were firing through loopholes, aiming for the three men in the center of the lawn.

These were no revolver shots. High-powered rifles were speaking from The Condor’s fortress. First shots sizzled high, as sharpshooters tried to pick their targets. Brock shouted an order; he dived for the sedan, with Harry and Hank behind him.

The Shadow dropped away. Prone in the darkness, he aimed another shot as the car took to the center of the lawn, under Brock’s mad guidance. Rifles were crackling after the fleeing sedan. The Shadow blotted out another searchlight; then a fourth. A weird laugh rose from his lips as the sedan sped to safety.

All center lights, those four. There had been a dozen at the start; hence each side of the lodge front still boasted a blazing quartet. The glares from the side showed three deputies rising from the ground to scatter. Those at the other side revealed Marquette and his trio as they ran for cover.

Rifles boomed pursuing shots; but The Shadow’s automatics spoke as well. Steadily, like a marksman engaged in target practice, he was pinging the remaining searchlights, bringing blank darkness as a cover for fugitives who would have otherwise been doomed.

One of Vic’s deputies staggered; another managed to help him to his feet. Then the last light blinked out at that side of the house. The Shadow aimed for one lone orb of light; the last one at the other side. A whistling slug from his automatic produced the final clatter.

Already, riflemen had begun a loophole fire for the terrain from which The Shadow’s automatics flashed.

Steel bullets were digging up the turf; some shots but inches wide of the hidden target whose exact location was guesswork on the part of the men within the lodge.

But with the last light gone, The Shadow ceased his fire. Fleeing men were lost in blackness. So was he.

Rising, he quickly withdrew from the danger spot that sharpshooters still sought blindly.

The sedan had passed the distant gate. Rifle shots told that the crooks in the lodge were starting a barrage to cover the spot where others would emerge. Then the firing ceased. The Condor had recognized its uselessness.

The whole lawn afforded shelter for deputies, who could lie there and let the crooks waste ammunition.

There was no way by which The Condor could stop those saved men who had fled.

Firing ended, scattered men crept toward that path to safety. Covered by darkness, their way was clear.

They were free to join their comrades. Six men, led by Vic Marquette, were saved from doom.

The Condor had been warned. A surprise attack had boomeranged; its authors had been routed. But The Shadow, covering the wild retreat, had prevented simple defeat from becoming absolute disaster.